Tiger Woods’ used to hit the fans with his ball on purpose on one hole at the Masters

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Tiger Woods used to use a strategy on the second hole of the Masters that included hitting fans with his ball on purpose.
The strategy was intended to set up an easy birdie on the Par 5.
Notah Begay said he tried the strategy after learning it from Woods, but it did not go as well.
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Tiger Woods has had a lot of success at the Masters, but some of that has come at the expense of the fans on the second hole.

The par-5 second hole at Augusta National has been a good scoring hole for Woods. In 21 Masters tournaments, he is 28-under on No. 2 and 58-under on the other 17 holes combined.

It turns out that sometimes he gets some help by intentionally aiming his approach shot at the fans.

Golf Channel analyst Notah Begay discussed advice that older players give younger players at the Masters. He told the story of how he received an odd tip from Woods on how to play the second hole when the pin is placed toward the back of the green.

Here is the story:

"Tiger Woods told me how to play the second [hole] … and he learned from Ray Floyd in the back-right hole location, you land the ball hole-high and let it bounce into the gallery and it hits the gallery in their feet and it stops there and you chip back and you putt it in [for birdie]. So that’s how Ray Floyd played that hole location. That’s how Tiger told me to play that hole location."

Unfortunately for Begay, things didn’t go as planned when he tried it.

"When I did it, the gallery moved out of the way and didn’t take one for the team. My ball ended up going about 20 yards over that green and I ended up having a really hard chip coming back to the hole."

Begay did note that Woods gave this advice at a time when the second hole was not quite as long as it is now, so it is not clear if Woods still uses this strategy. However, there are a number of photos through the years of Woods chipping onto the second green from a spot just in front of the gallery, such this one from 2009.

It even appears that security had to move the patrons back to make room for Woods.

Hans Deryk/Reuters

Woods always has to deal with a large crowd following him around the golf course. On hole No. 2 at the Masters, Woods has used that to his advantage.

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